Timeline paints picture of frustration, misinformation

The first recorded instance that something was amiss with Tafari Sarai Barris came in October, about five months before the 2-year-old was found dead and her father, Dwight Slay, and his girlfriend, Latima Coleman, were accused of child abuse and torture.

The first recorded instance that something was amiss with Tafari Sarai Barris came in October, about five months before the 2-year-old was found dead and her father, Dwight Slay, and his girlfriend, Latima Coleman, were accused of child abuse and torture.

Case documents and court records show when concerns about the child's safety began, and when they increased and prompted increased attempts from investigators to find the child that, ultimately, came up short.

On one occasion, Slay told police he had set up a doctor's appointment for Tafari; on other occasions, people either didn't have enough information or had inaccurate information, so officials checked wrong addresses.

There were "welfare check" stop-ins by the police, something that happens very frequently, police said.

On one occasion, a social worker searched county records to find information about Coleman, but it led to the conclusion that a different child, not Tafari, was the victim. Slay and Coleman have more than one child together, and there is another 2-year-old girl related to the case, further confusing efforts to intervene for this child.

On another occasion, a social worker was not allowed inside a home, which looked dirty and smelled bad. There were two children inside, but it's unclear if either was Tafari.

And at one point when police visited Colemen, she told officers somebody kept making false reports and sending police to her house, according to the report.

One caller provided some insight into how Tafari was passed from one person to another during her short life. The child was in the care of her mother, then one person, then another before ending up in the care of Slay. One of these interim custodians was uncooperative when police visited the person's home, according to the documents.

From March 23 through March 31, police patrol officers handled a total of seven calls related to Tafari from both the public and from CPS, said Officer Joe Silva, a Stockton Police Department spokesman. It was enough of a red flag to prompt detectives to investigate, he said. Around the same time, Tafari's biological mother called the county's child-abduction team.

Police investigators decided sometime after March 31 that it was time to upgrade the case to an "at-risk" missing-person's case, and the missing-persons unit took over.

By April 2, photos of Slay and Tafari had been sent to other agencies in San Joaquin County and to the state Attorney General's Office.

On April 6, Tafari was dead.

Contact reporter Zachary K. Johnson at (209) 546-8258 or zjohnson@recordnet.com. Follow him at recordnet.com/johnsonblog and on Twitter @zacharykjohnson.